


love is a long, long road

by Eisoj5



Series: won't back down [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: Short pieces from other POVs on the events ini guess i'll know when i get there.Cannot really be read as standalones!I'll rearrange chronologically as new ficlets get written.Originally posted to my tumblr.





	1. before they met

“He doesn’t even know I exist,” Luke says, plaintively, flopping down next to Han in the engineering compartment of the  _ Falcon _ .

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Han’s lying face down over the open panel, and whatever he’s doing is sending up sparks every which way. “Of course he knows you exist. Kinda hard to miss the Death Star blowing up. Plus there was the whole medal ceremony and all.”

“I think he did miss the medal ceremony,” Luke mutters. “I was looking for him. Um. Them. The Rogue One team.”

Han swears and rolls quickly out of the way as steam comes shooting up out of the panel. “I think I stripped it, dammit.” He looks at Luke, visibly making an effort not to roll his eyes. “Andor’s still trapped in the medcenter. They were all probably there with him instead.”

Luke groans and hangs his head. “I didn’t think of that.” He jerks his head up again and scrambles to his feet. “Maybe I should go down there. Oh, did you want any help?” He waves a hand towards the hissing steam.

“No, I got it.” Han picks up a hydrospanner and gestures him out. “Just—Luke, watch out for Erso, she looks like she’s gonna stab somebody.”


	2. chapter 3: karrde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for morag

They’re obviously a team, the three of them, but—they’re also _not_ , somehow. Andor and Erso fit right in; he’s casual and haughty in an Imperial uniform, she more frivolously fancy except for the fact that she can easily grab his spare blaster off his hip. The kind of beautiful people that belong in a place more upscale than the Blue Convor, if such a place was to be had anywhere on this desolate world.

But their third—

 _Huh_ , Karrde thinks, deeply appreciating the view as the trio comes towards his booth.

And—

_He could be a problem._

The third is the man who’d caused such a fuss, about six months ago. Karrde’s network of people had heard details, of a sort, about the talkative cargo pilot who had run for home, destruction on his heels. But no one had bothered to tell Karrde that he would be quite this good-looking, nor quite so—

Well. Karrde had once had pet Baldavian pocket hares that were less skittish than Bodhi Rook.

Though he has to admit that none of them would have ever looked quite as good in a suit—and then promptly has to stifle a snort at the fleeting vision of a dozen pocket hares stacked one on top of the other inside the expensive jacket Rook’s wearing. Their eyes would’ve been the same; nervous, darting, framed with _ridiculously_ long eyelashes.

Their little meeting—Andor and Erso want something, and not just from Karrde. They’re watching Rook, though he doesn’t appear to know it, only jumping into the conversation as it heats up, passion coloring his raised voice. Rook can’t relax into whatever the role is that Andor wants him to play; he’s lacing and unlacing his graceful fingers together on the tabletop without seeming to notice he’s doing it, his shoulders hunched and too tense for the intimate setting of the club.

_What the hell is Andor doing, trying to make this guy into a spy?_

Karrde approves, though, when Rook quickly assesses possible exits as the Imperial lieutenant starts to circle the club. _And_ when he doesn’t immediately freak out when Karrde wraps a hand around the back of his neck and leans in. His dark eyes go even wider, if such a thing is possible, but he lets Karrde kiss him, doesn’t push Karrde away until he strokes his fingers over—

_—scars?_

The base of Rook’s neck, just at his collar, is a strange place to be scarred as badly as he is. Karrde can’t make sense of it; if he had been shot or stabbed there he’d be paralyzed or _dead_ , not cringing away from a gentle touch as if struck.

Karrde frowns. Andor and Erso still look like they're in a clinch of their own—and it _definitely_ isn’t their first kiss—but Andor’s eyeing Rook over Erso’s shoulder with a worried crease in his forehead. Rook isn't looking at anything at all, his gaze worryingly unfocused on a point somewhere beyond Karrde's head. The protective instincts that had made it so very easy to take over in Car’das’ absence rise to the forefront of Karrde's mind: Rook is a man who needs to be pushed, but this first push was, perhaps, a bit too hard.

_Pull him back._

“What happened to you?” Karrde asks, very softly, making sure he isn’t touching him anymore, though there’s a part of him that wonders what would happen if he did.

Rook’s voice cracks, but he recovers himself, dark eyes flashing. “I’m—you _kissed me—”_

“Oldest trick in the galaxy,” Karrde says, putting some contrition into his tone, and then, “Bodhi, I—”

But Erso interrupts, throwing Karrde a sideways glare, and she and Andor hustle Rook out the door before Karrde can tell him—what?

_That I’d like to buy him a drink?_

He laughs at himself for the thought, and signals the bartender droid, wondering what Andor or Erso would’ve done if he _had_.


	3. chapter 61: luke

“Don’t worry, Artoo, we’re going, we’re going,” Luke says, pulling the canopy of his X-wing into place. The ground shakes underneath them; more explosions inside Echo Base. He’s glad to be leaving that behind for the stars. Luke thinks Bodhi must be somewhere out there already, flying the cargo shuttle Luke had given him, and hurries to get the engines started, smiling a little to himself.

Wedge and the rest of the squadron—

Luke’s smile falters and fades.

_Don’t think about Dak, and Zev. And—all the others—_

—are probably telling Bodhi about the tow cable trick they'd used on the walkers, while they're escorting him, and whoever his passengers are, safely out of Hoth space. Hopefully, they’re distracting Bodhi from whatever Luke imagines must be going on in his head about being chased out of _another_ home by a wave of Imperial destruction.

Luke lifts off, Artoo chirruping in frantic relief behind him. There’s no one else around; the final GR-75 must’ve gone, too. He feels kind of badly about not being there to make sure that last transport got away safely, but he’d brought down a walker, and kept the Imperials from pointing one more terrible machine at his friends, at least.

“Artoo, let’s start plotting that course to the rendezvous point, okay?” Luke says, and as his X-wing noses up out of Hoth’s atmosphere—“ _Fuck,_ ” he breathes, horrified at the devastation in his path—the void glitters with much worse than stars. He instinctively reaches out to feel for Bodhi’s presence, the soaring light of his heart.

But Bodhi must be too far away, by now, and besides, there’s no sign of a Lambda-class shuttle among the listing ships and debris.

Artoo warbles, softly.

“It’s awful,” Luke agrees, and then has to pay attention to what he’s doing, because there’s a couple Star Destroyers trying to intercept him with turbolaser fire and tractor beams—he spins easily out of range, keeping an eye out for TIEs.

“—Luke? Luke, are you there? Can you hear me— _Luke_ , _for the love of—_ please, _please_ come in—”

Luke taps his comm. “Wedge? Yeah, I’m here, you wanna take out a few of these guys on our way out, or—”

“Luke—” Wedge makes a strange, and unfamiliar sound in his ear. “Luke, oh, _fuck_ , I am so, so sorry.”

He steels himself; he _is_ the commander, after all, and though it’s unpleasant—“I know, it's terrible that we lost Dak, and Zev, but we've got to—”

“Bodhi's gone,” Wedge chokes out.

Luke shakes his head, diving past a couple of incoming TIEs and cutting back to take them out. “Wedge—let’s just get out of here, we’ll meet up with Bodhi at the rendezvous—”

“ _No, listen_ ,” Wedge insists. “Bodhi—he’s dead, he’s _dead,_ and I'm so sorry, Luke, I tried, I swear to you I tried, all of us did—”

Artoo's horrified moan sounds like it's coming from very far away.

_Bodhi’s—_

_No, he can’t be—_

Wedge's panicked words are gibberish in Luke's ears as he reaches out with the Force again.

_Bodhi, where are you?_

Luke can't sense him anywhere.

_No._

_No._

“I don't believe it,” he says, panting, and stretches out once more, farther than he's ever looked before, but the ripples of the galaxy are empty and cold. Colder than he'd been, lost on the planet below.

_Bodhi, where are you?_

“He—he was flying that—that transport,” Wedge stutters, answering Luke’s desperate voiced thought. “Waited for Chirrut and Baze, I saw them boarding the—the _Bright Hope_ —the last one out.”

“Of course he was,” Luke replies, proud even though panic is starting to seep in. “Bodhi hates to leave anyone behind, it goes all the way back to Scarif, and—and—”

Artoo, very quietly, indicates on the scope which of the utterly demolished ships around them is the _Bright Hope_.

“ _No,”_ Luke cries, staring at the wreck burning brighter than the stars, frozen with horror and shock, as the vision he'd had on Arbra floods back with terrible force.

_(“I saw a ship blow up, and I knew you were on it—”)_

“No! _NO!”_ Luke clenches the controls so hard their contours imprint on his hands.

_It wasn't real! It was a nightmare!_

_“Bodhi!!”_

Somewhere nearby, more TIE fighters are exploding in the void, X-wings wheeling through the debris, and Luke registers that his squadron is still protecting him, as they must have tried to do for Bodhi—

Wedge, his voice thick and hoarse: “He wanted me to tell you—Luke, I— _dammit_ , I am _so_ sorry—”

Despair rushes towards him, inevitable and unceasing as the tide.

“Bodhi—at the end, he wanted you to know that he loved you,” Wedge says, brokenly.

Luke sobs.

He doesn't care that the entire squadron can hear him, or that they still haven't gotten clear of the battle. Words scatter from his mouth, from the wreckage of his heart. “No, _no_ , he—he can't—he _left_ **_me_ ** _behind!”_

“Commander—” It's Kasan, unusually soft. “There's nothing you can do for him now. We have to go.”

Luke bites back an anguished cry. The thought of never being able to see Bodhi's face again, or to hold his hand, even if—even if it’s only to tell him—

“Get going to the rendezvous point,” Luke says, miserably, and one by one, the X-wings around him streak ahead and wink out into hyperspace.

Luke strains to touch the Force, even though he's so far from calm it shouldn't be possible. And feeling it surrounding him brings him no comfort, although Bodhi and—and his teachers, _oh, blasted burning stars,_ all _of the last of the Jedhans—_ are one with it now.

He waits until his squadron—his friends—have all gone, and then he reaches for the navicomputer.

Artoo asks something, and the translation scrolls across his display, blurred with tears. Luke swallows painfully. “ _Everything's_ wrong, Artoo. I'm setting a new course.”

He squeezes his eyes shut.

_(“If—if you ever have to leave again, for whatever reason—like Jedi stuff, like you did before, I guess—” Bodhi had put his knees up and rested his arms on them, gazing at Luke. His hair was coming loose all around his face, and his dark eyes were so intent, and anxious, and hopeful, and beautiful—)_

Artoo trills something, nervously, and Luke opens his eyes again. Every breath catches in his chest; hot tears stream down his flushed face.

“No, we're not going to regroup with the others,” Luke murmurs, trying to hold onto the memory of Bodhi's startled smile when he'd kissed him.

_(“Stars. Bodhi—”)_

_I love you._

_I'm sorry I'm breaking my promise._

_(“—I will always come back to you.”)_

“We're going to the Dagobah system.”

_Goodbye._


	4. chapter 61: wedge

The X-wings dock in the  _Redemption’s_ hangar bay, one right after the other, and Wedge doesn’t wait for the crew to finish getting the ladder seated in place before he’s leaping over the side of the cockpit and charging straight at Janson—

“Wait—I’m  _sorry!”_  Janson cries out, and then they both go down on the deck, Janson barely trying to fend off Wedge’s blows, his face blotchy and red.

“Your fucking  _joke_ —” Wedge pants, between punches. There’s people shouting all around him, the warbling screeches of astromechs and the silent explosions of ships coming apart ringing in his head. 

Wedge hits Wes again. His knuckles split and bleed, but he doesn’t care; he  _has_ to do this, averting his eyes from where Luke’s X-wing must be docking, because he can’t bear to see the look on Luke’s face.

“Boss—Wedge!” Hobbie and Kasan and—not Zev, Zev’s dead too—grab for Wedge’s flailing hands. He tries to push them away—someone gets a firm grip on him and hauls him off of Janson. 

“Get off me—” Wedge staggers backwards, shoving at—at General Rieekan—but it doesn’t matter, none of it matters, they’d  _lost_ on Hoth, they’d lost their oldest pilot and the new kid all in one blow, and then he’d failed Bodhi, and he’d failed Luke, and—

“Wedge, Wedge, I’m sorry,” Janson mumbles, pressing a hand to his face as Kasan gets a shoulder under his arm and levers him up. “It’s my fault.”

“You’re damn right—” Wedge snarls at him. Rieekan is yelling at them both, sounding shaken; Hobbie won’t let go of his arm because he keeps trying to get at Janson again. “He’s  _dead_ because of your fucking prank, they’re  _all_ dead—” Wedge has an awful flash of memory of seeing Imwe and Malbus stumbling through the snow towards the transport with a SpecForces guy, and, knowing he’s  _right_ , jerks away from Hobbie’s grasp and is sick on the deck.

_The last three Jedhans—_

“Get Janson to the medcenter,” Rieekan orders, and then he crouches next to Wedge, hand hovering over his shoulder. “Antilles, what—”

Wedge wipes his mouth on his sleeve, unable to look anyone in the eye. He stares at the orange legs of pilots standing around him instead, unsure which of them might be Luke, damning him silently. “Captain Rook, and Îmwe and Malbus, they were on the last transport off after you, sir, and they didn’t—I couldn’t—Luke, I’m so fucking sorry, I’m sorry—”

Rieekan grips his shoulder, hard, and demands, “Is Commander Skywalker dead  _too?”_

Wedge snaps his head up, horror stabbing his heart as he scans the hangar bay and  _doesn’t_ spot Luke’s X-wing in its usual spot, or crammed anywhere behind the other battered fighters. “Luke was right behind us,” he says, bile rising in his throat again. “He gave the order to jump. I thought—I thought he was with us—”

“He’s not here,” Hobbie says, wide-eyed. “Blast, Wedge, where d’you think he— _oh, fuck, he wouldn’t—”_

Wedge stares unseeing at his best friend, hearing the echo of his own breaking voice giving Bodhi’s final message to Luke; Luke’s despairing, hopeless sobs.

_He wouldn’t._

_He_ wouldn’t.

But Wedge imagines an X-wing hurtling into the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer, or Luke, his eyes ablaze with grief and rage, carving a path through its corridors with his lightsaber until he’s shot down—

—and manages to turn his head away just in time to keep from being sick all over Rieekan’s boots.

**Author's Note:**

> for (in no particular order):  
> brynnmclean  
> moragmacpherson  
> attackedastoria  
> miraphora  
> wbh  
> misskatieleigh  
> rogueshadows  
> meledea
> 
> and whoever the anons are that requested things on my tumblr. thank you! <3


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